


it takes some getting used to

by notkai



Series: rotting in rarepair hell (to be renamed at a later date) [1]
Category: Legacies (TV 2018)
Genre: And Boy Does It Show, Blood Drinking, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Idiots in Love, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, SPOILERS for 1x7, Sick Character, Vampires, Vomiting, You can pry this ship from my cold dead hands, god i am. ashamed. but here it is., so small you might not see it, the tag "useless vampires" came up and honestly? accurate, the tiniest bit of angst, there's a lot to unpack here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-17
Updated: 2019-02-17
Packaged: 2019-10-30 02:59:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17820518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notkai/pseuds/notkai
Summary: As it turns out, not all blood is the same, and Kaleb has some trouble adjusting to rabbit blood.[Spoilers for "Death Keeps Knocking on my Door"]





	it takes some getting used to

**Author's Note:**

> so...I am totally new to the Legacies fandom, but I have absolutely fallen in love with both Kaleb and MG, hence my writing this. I know this isn't a very, uh, popular ship, but I'm hoping someone else will enjoy it as well. If you did like the fic, feel free to throw a kudos my way, or even a comment if you're feeling frisky. Everything is appreciated.

 

  Kaleb had, in all honesty, wanted to avoid letting any non-human blood touch his lips for as long as he could. From the second he had woken up after his death, starving and craving blood like nothing else, he had been drinking human blood. The idea of drinking blood from animals had never even crossed his mind until he had been enrolled at the Salvatore School and heard the absolutely bullshit no-feeding policy. Even then, he had interpreted that as merely a suggestion and not a hard rule to be adhered to.

    But after the Remembrance Day incident, Kaleb was...less inclined to continue feeding from humans. Something about seeing MG's eyes turn red and watching him try to drain the literal life of the man Kaleb had compelled to follow them had shaken something in Kaleb, although he couldn't quite identify what. All he knew was that whenever he thought about feeding, a haunting image of MG's blood-lustful eyes would appear in his mind, and his appetite would suddenly make itself scarce.

    So he began taking the no-feeding rule a little more seriously, and not just because of Dr. Saltzman's well-intentioned warning that any further feeding incidents would result in immediate expulsion. Kaleb avoided eating as much as he could, but there was only so long a vampire could go without blood.

    It was MG who first noticed Kaleb's hesitance to eat, and he tried to breach the subject as casually as he could. Kaleb had been in MG's room, sitting at the end of his bed and flipping through a textbook on interspecies relationships throughout history, trying to dig up a quote or two to add to his paper on the historical connections between vampire nests and various covens. MG had disappeared a few minutes ago to get a snack, but Kaleb wasn't expecting him to plop a blood bag on Kaleb's lap when he came back into the room.

    "I wasn't sure if you wanted anything, but I grabbed one just in case," MG explained as he sat back down on the bed, grabbing his notebook and settling it on his lap again. "I know you aren't big on, y'know, rabbit blood, but..."

    "It's what we have," Kaleb finished when MG trailed off. He shifted the blood bag a bit in his hands, examining the color and weight of it. "Thanks, man."

    MG smiled a bit. "No problem." He leaned back against the pillows, scribbling something down in his notebook. Kaleb stared at the three spouts at the top of the bag for a moment, wondering how he was supposed to get this open without making a mess, before deciding he may as well just shotgun the thing.

    His fangs pierced the plastic easily, and Kaleb quickly pressed his mouth over the puncture marks and took a drink of the blood. The first thing he noticed was how  _bitter_ it was. Human blood had a sort of richness to it, and the taste wasn't unlike beef, or at least what Kaleb remembered it to taste like. The rabbit blood was thin and had an acidic quality to it, and Kaleb couldn't help but cringe a bit as he swallowed.

    MG must have been watching him, because he made a bit of a sympathetic face and said, "I know it doesn't taste as good as human blood, but it'll fill you up." Kaleb nodded and took a couple more swallows, forcing down as much of it as he could before pulling back from the bag.

    He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and dragged his tongue over his fangs, trying to clean the taste of the rabbit blood away. "It's not that bad," Kaleb said, although the acetous taste at the back of his throat wanted to make him say otherwise. "I'll get used to it."

    MG nodded, and the two went back to their studying. Kaleb went back to his own room to grab a different book a half hour later, and threw out the half-empty blood bag while he was at it. He couldn't bring himself to finish it.

    As they continued to study, Kaleb tried to ignore the unsettled feeling in his stomach. He told himself it was just his body adjusting to the rabbit blood, and it would go away if he ignored it. But the discomfort eventually turned into pain, which turned into nausea. Still, Kaleb tried his best to pay no attention to it.

    But the nausea ignored Kaleb's efforts and worsened until Kaleb found himself swallowing harshly to push the sensation back down. He moved the book off his lap and leaned forward a bit, closing his eyes and trying his best to will the nausea away.

    Across from him, MG frowned and sat up. "You good, man?" He asked, voice worried.

    Kaleb didn't get a chance to answer- the nausea spiked and he clamped a hand over his mouth, pushing himself off the bed and rushing to the bathroom.

    The communal men's bathroom was just a couple doors down from MG's room, but Kaleb was barely able to get the toilet lid up before he began puking up half-digested blood. Kaleb mentally cursed himself for leaving his hair down and brought one hand up to hold his dreads back as he vomited, using the other hand to steady himself against the toilet.

    MG had been a step behind him, and Kaleb could hear him enter the bathroom and sigh when he saw Kaleb kneeling in front of the toilet. The puking stopped long enough for Kaleb to catch his breath, and he was about to tell MG that he was fine, everything was good,  _you don't have to stay here and watch me puke, I'll be fine,_  but his stomach got the best of him and he doubled forward, retching again.

    Kaleb was vaguely aware of rustling and movement behind him, and then he suddenly felt hands at the back of his head, pulling his hair back and securing it with a hair tie. MG sighed again and dropped his hand to rest between Kaleb's shoulder blades, wincing a bit as Kaleb spat out another mouthful of blood. "Jesus Christ, man...did I give you, like, spoiled blood or some shit?"

    Kaleb knew it was a rhetorical question, but even if it hadn't been, he didn't trust himself to open his mouth without vomiting again. The nausea was still rampaging inside of him, but it had abated enough that he was able to press the flush and lean back against the wall, weak and shaking.

    MG was watching him with dark, worried eyes, and held out a paper cup of water out to Kaleb. "Here. Just rinse your mouth out, alright? Don't try to swallow it."

    Kaleb did as MG asked, but a stinging, acrid taste still lingered on his tongue. There was a second of tense silence before MG broke into apologetic rambling. "I'm really sorry, man, I should have known you wouldn't be used to it- shit, I really didn't mean for this to happen-"

    "It's alright," Kaleb cut in. His voice was raspy from the exertion of vomiting, and it stung his throat to speak, but he knew MG would talk himself in circles if Kaleb didn't stop him. "It's not your fault." MG's expression was doubtful, so Kaleb pressed on and said, "Seriously. How were you supposed to know how I would react? I mean, blood is blood, right?"

    "Apparently not," MG said, chuckling sadly, and Kaleb would have laughed as well if not for the sudden nausea rising in his throat again. He leaned forward, coughing and gagged as the last of the blood made its reappearance.

    Once he was sure he was done, Kaleb stood up- or tried to, at least. He hadn't counted on puking draining the majority of his energy. "Whoa, whoa, wait-" MG quickly stepped forward as Kaleb stumbled a bit, sliding his arm under Kaleb's and supporting him as best he could. "-I think you should sit down again, Kaleb."

    He shook his head, despite the way his stomach protested the movement. "Don't want to sit on this cold ass floor until my legs decide to work again," Kaleb murmured, aiming for a humorous delivery. MG's tight, worried expression told him he had fallen a bit short.

    MG left for a couple minutes to find Dr. Saltzman, after much insistence from Kaleb ("what if you fall and hit your head or something?" "dude, just fucking go, I'll be fine"), to get access to the school's medicine storage. Kaleb used the free time to brush his teeth vigorously, trying to scrub away the lingering taste of bunny blood and stomach acid.

    MG came back with a plastic water bottle and a bottle of medicine, the sight of which made Kaleb's stomach turn a bit. MG slipped an arm under Kaleb's again and led him back to his room, talking all the while. "So, Dr. Saltzman said that it isn't, like, super weird that you got sick or anything, since you've never had non-human blood before- like you said, your body didn't really know how to process it. He said it was like if someone who had never eaten dairy before decided to eat a whole block of cheese- oh, shit, sorry, bad comparison-" MG quickly cut himself off at Kaleb's moderately nauseated expression. "-or if, like, someone who had never gone to the gym decided to bench press two hundred pounds. They would be all sore and shit, right?"

    "Yeah," Kaleb murmured, only half paying attention as MG sat him down on the bed. He glanced at the walls, covered in comic book posters, and frowned. "Why are we-"

    "I figured this would be easier," MG answered hastily, moving his notebooks and pencils off of the bed. "Since your room is, like, three halls down. Unless you want to go back to your room?"

    Kaleb really didn't- that felt like way more walking than he had the energy for- but he didn't want to inconvenience MG. His friend had already helped him plenty, even going to the trouble of getting him medicine, and he didn't want to overstay his welcome.

    MG seemed to pick up on his hesitance and said, "Dude, don't worry about it, alright? Seriously." Kaleb noticed something lingering in his eyes, some emotion he couldn't quite identify. "I don't mind."

    Kaleb accepted his answer and toed his sneakers off before hesitantly lying down. It felt bizzare to be lounging in someone else's bed, but MG didn't seem to mind. He grabbed a small wastebasket from beside his desk and set it down next to Kaleb's side of the bed, with a quick explanation of, "just in case you need to puke again."

    Kaleb really hoped he wouldn't need it, but he appreciated the thought anyway. He accepted the anti-emetic pills MG offered to him and washed them down with a couple small sips of water. 

    "Dr. Saltzman said the medicine might make you tired, but it should help your stomach," MG said, sitting down on the bed next to Kaleb. Kaleb nodded and closed his eyes. 

    They laid together in silence for another half hour, and the medicine certainly helped Kaleb's stomach. It also made him drowsy as fuck, but he didn't mind. 

    Without really thinking about it, Kaleb opened his eyes and reached out to take MG's hand in his own. It was mostly just to get MG's attention, but Kaleb couldn't quite make himself let go after MG's eyes turned to him. "Thank you for helping me, man," Kaleb said, fatigue softening the edges of his words. "I really appreciate it."

    MG's smile could have lit up a small room. "Anytime, man. We gotta look after each other, right?" Kaleb nodded, trying to identify the emotion lingering in MG's expression. Affection? Longing? Kaleb was too tired to figure it out. 

    MG squeezed Kaleb's hand and then released it, flipping another page in his book. Kaleb closed his eyes and leaned back into the pillows, falling asleep not soon after. 

 

 

    When Kaleb woke up, it was dark out and MG had fallen asleep next to him. Moving as quietly as he could, Kaleb slipped out of MG's bed and grabbed his shoes. He felt steadier than he had earlier, but the medicine had left a lingering sort of fog in his head. Kaleb just wanted to get back to his own room and sleep it off. 

    Even so, he found himself rooted in place and watching MG sleep. MG looked even younger and calmer when he was asleep, at least like this. The last time Kaleb had seen him sleep was in the temporary containment cell after the feeding incident. There had been an uneasy tension in MG's face, even when he was unconscious. Probably from the pain of drying out.

    Kaleb suppressed a shudder and turned away from MG to grab the school supplies that he had left strewn out at the foot of the bed. He was glad MG was sleeping calmly now. 

    As he was padding down the hallway, his books and notes clutched in one arm and his shoes in the other, Kaleb was expecting everyone would be asleep. So when he heard a voice from behind him, Kaleb damn near had a heart attack. "Feeling better, I take it?"

    Heart thudding, Kaleb whirled around and saw a tired-looking Dr. Saltzman standing behind him. When the fuck had he gotten here? Had he followed Kaleb or some shit? Feeling moderately suspicious about the whole thing, Kaleb nodded and said, "Yeah, well enough to walk. Were you following me?"

    "I was coming back from the library. Dorian had something he needed to show me," Dr. Saltzman explained. If he was offended by Kaleb's suspicion, he didn't show it. "I talked to one of our medics, and she said that your reaction to the rabbit blood was nothing out of the ordinary for a vampire who's never consumed animal blood before. She also said that this will probably happen the next few times you drink rabbit blood, but after that, your body will adapt to it."

    Kaleb's brow furrowed, and irritation bubbled up beneath his lingering fatigue. "So you just want me to spend the next week puking my guts up whenever I try to eat?" 

    "I don't  _want_ you to be ill, but we don't have any other choice," Dr. Saltzman replied. His voice was terse but he didn't match Kaleb's aggression. He seemed to stare right through Kaleb as he continued. "Feeding from humans is strictly prohibited. Need I remind you of what happened last time you decided to break that rule?"

    Immediately, the temperature of the corridor seemed to drop several degrees. MG's blood-red eyes and feral expression reappeared in Kaleb's mind, and he suddenly found it hard to breathe for a moment. "No." Kaleb tightened his grip on his books and turned away from Dr. Saltzman. "'night."

    "Goodnight, Kaleb." Without turning around, Kaleb knew there was a drained, weary expression on Dr. Saltzman's face. The whole ripper thing with MG was probably stressing him the fuck out too, but Kaleb didn't feel very much sympathy for him- at least not with his current plan to let Kaleb vomit up bunny blood for the next several days. Shit, couldn't they just do a community blood drive and slip him a couple bags under the table? 

    By the time Kaleb returned to his room, the irritation had faded away and made room for fatigue. The medicine had mostly worn off by then, but it was still late as hell. Kaleb made quick work of changing and shoving his shit in his bag before collapsing on his bed. 

    As soon as he closed his eyes, Kaleb could see MG's face, watching him after Kaleb thanked him for looking after him. There had been something lingering in his expression, something Kaleb could _almost_ identify- it was sitting on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't quite get it and it was making his skin crawl the longer he thought about it. The whole moment seemed suspended in time, and Kaleb could still feel MG's nimble fingers around his hand, and the gentle, reassuring squeeze he had given Kaleb. 

    Shit, maybe he was overthinking it. Maybe it had just been nothing. Maybe. 

    Kaleb rolled over and closed his eyes, trying to block out the lost, frustrated feeling roaming around in his head. He didn't manage that as well as he would have liked, but it didn't make the smallest amount of difference as sleep pulled him under. 

 

    Dr. Saltzman was unfortunately, painfully right about the medic's words that Kaleb would need a few more illness-inducing feeds to get used to rabbit blood. The second feed resulted in another equally draining puking session, and the third led to a smaller one, at which point Kaleb was becoming irritatingly familiar with the array of cracks in the tile of the men's bathroom walls, and the fourth feed produced manageable nausea. By the fifth feed, Kaleb was able to drink a full bag of rabbit blood and not feel like his body was trying to remove his organs via regurgitation. It sucked on ice, and Kaleb missed more class than he would have liked to, but he managed. And he supposed the adjustment was worth it in the long run. 

    MG was by his side the whole time, offering anti-emetics and gum and bottled water. Kaleb thought he would feel smothered by MG's mother-henning, but he surprisingly didn't. He actually enjoyed the amount of time he got to spend with MG, despite Kaleb's insistence that MG shouldn't also be missing class to take care of him. Both of them agreed it would be better if Kaleb wasn't feeling like shit for most of it, though. 

    So they made up for lost time by cram-studying together, trying to absorb every last bit of information they had missed from class before exam season arrived. It was still a good month and a half away, but every student knew how quickly it could sneak up on a poor, unsuspecting, under-prepared soul. They quizzed each other, proof-read each other's essays, and put together some killer presentations for a couple classes. 

    It was fun, but Kaleb noticed a few small things changing with the way MG acted around him. Sometimes, Kaleb could see MG watching him out of the corner of his eye while he was reading, although he always seemed to look away when Kaleb met his gaze. Whenever they spoke, even if they were just joking around, there was a sort of nervousness in MG's tone. Kaleb had brushed it off initially, thinking maybe it was just stress from missing class, but he couldn't ignore it now that they were all caught up. 

    He told himself that maybe it was something personal, maybe it was none of his business. MG would tell him what was bothering him if he wanted to. Kaleb swallowed his questions and swallowed the ever-building desire to yell with frustration when he saw that unidentifiable  _something_ lurking in MG's eyes. 

    A week passed, and Kaleb finally broke. He cornered MG after class one day, while they were playing video games in MG's dorm room. Kaleb paused the game and set the controller down, ignoring MG's protest of, "dude, you just broke my streak!" 

    "Is everything alright, man?" Kaleb started, realizing immediately after he spoke that he had absolutely no idea how to breach this topic. "Recently, you've been sort of, I don't know..." He made a vague hand gesture as he tried to find the right word to fill the space. "...distant?"

    "I've been spending the past, like, three weeks with you," MG pointed out. He quickly followed it with, "and I've enjoyed it, I don't mean to say that like I've felt  _obligated_ or some shit, but, like...I've been  _here."_

"That's not what I meant," Kaleb insisted, but he wasn't quite sure what he did mean. He let a small silence follow his words, and then everything came pouring out in a messy, jumbled stream. "You've been side-eyeing me when you think I'm not looking, and whenever we talk you sound like there's something you wanna say but you aren't, and you keep looking at me with this- this fuckin'  _look_  that I can't really name but I  _know_  it's something important! What's going on?"

    MG's gaze fell away from Kaleb's and he stared at the floor, absolutely silent. A deep, oppressive quiet settled over the room, and Kaleb suddenly felt suffocated by it. 

    He moved a bit closer to MG and, impulsively, took his hand again. "You know you can tell me anything, right?" 

    MG didn't say anything at all. He turned to Kaleb, brought one hand up to cup Kaleb's jaw, and kissed him. 

    Kaleb was frozen for a moment, stunned by the sudden kiss. But he found himself relaxing and tilting his head to better establish the angle, bringing one arm up to circle around MG's waist and pull him a bit closer. The kiss was sweet and tender and it seemed to make all the lingering tension and uncertainty between them melt away. 

    MG was the first to pull back, and as he opened his eyes, Kaleb could see the rapid transition from affectionate and sated to 'oh,  _fuck_ ', and he said as much. "Fuck, Kaleb- I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

    "Why would you be sorry?" Kaleb asked softly, startling himself a bit with his own words. He meant them genuinely, though. Kaleb hadn't minded kissing MG- on the contrary, he had actually quite enjoyed it. 

    There had always been something about MG that Kaleb had been drawn to. They bonded instantly at the start of the year, and Kaleb always found himself laughing at MG's corny jokes or watching with amusement and fondness as MG rambled about whatever nerd media series he was into at the time. Something about MG encouraged Kaleb to let his guard down. He let himself be vulnerable and open around MG; he let himself love and let himself feel loved. 

    And that's what it was- those lingering looks. Kaleb felt like everything was suddenly clicking into place. MG had been looking at Kaleb like he loved him- or at least, like he liked him enough to kiss him, and that was close enough for Kaleb. 

    MG's moderately frightened expression made way for one of relief, cautious hope, and hesitance. "You...you don't hate me?"

    Kaleb couldn't help but chuckle a bit at the absurdity of anyone ever hating MG. "Hell no, man. Why would I?"

    There was another moment of silence, but it wasn't weighed down with uncertainty and nervousness. This time, it was elated by realization, affection, all that good mushy shit. They didn't say anything else; Kaleb leaned forward to kiss MG again, and MG melted into Kaleb's arms like he belonged there. It was warm and affectionate, it was a realizing and a reconciliation, an apology and a reassurance. A promise, a confession. Sitting on MG's floor with a video game controller awkwardly tucked under his shin, his arms wrapped around MG's waist and one of MG's hands resting on the back of his neck, Kaleb realized there was nowhere else he would rather be in that moment. Everything was exactly how it should be. It was bonding. It was something Kaleb wanted to do again and again. 

    It felt like coming home. 

    

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for taking the time to read this fluffy gay monstrosity, I will definitely be writing more for this pairing in the future despite literally nobody else wanting me to.


End file.
